The Political Economy of Football V2

Wolverhampton Wanderers booked a £15.3 million ($20.2m) loss in their 2024-25 Premier League season, even as they reaped £117m in player-trading profits — by some distance a new club record.  Wolves’ latest books also paint a picture of a club in decline on the pitch, very much setting the scene for their awful 2025-26 campaign. Wolves extended their accounting period, moving their May year-end date to June, and in doing so were able to book the sales of Matheus Cunha and Rayan Ait-Nouri, to Manchester United and Manchester City respectively, into last season’s accounts. Wolves’ revenue fell by £5.7m last season, driven by dropping from finishing 14th in the Premier League in 2023-24 to 16th and also having two fewer games selected for live broadcast (15, against the 17 a year earlier). Those factors reduced broadcast income by £8.4m, and that revenue stream is likely to decline further this term. Like most Premier League clubs outside the ‘Big Six’, Wolves rely on TV money f...

I have a number of friends who are Spurs fans and I have been telling them for some time, think about structure not agency.   Modern football is obsessed with the manager or coach as if he actually controls the players on the pitch. Tottenham Hotspur have a splendid stadium (a relative who was a contractor is full of praise) but they seem to have forgotten that this is a means to the key objective of success on the pitch. Spurs, as one senior figure recently publicly admitted, are a football club who haven’t focused enough on the football. They’re a name, a brand, a venue, an events company. But not primarily a football team. It’s not Igor Tudor’s fault. You don’t blame the erroneously hired admin manager when the FTSE 100 company goes bankrupt. Spurs are just not a serious enough football club. Well, they’re a serious football club when it comes to aesthetics. Their stunning stadium is one of the finest in Europe, their state-of-the-art training ground is the same, th...

Despite record revenue, Nottingham Forest made an operating loss of nearly £65 m in 2024/25, after posting a £24 m profit the previous year:  https://www.nottinghampost.com/sport/football/football-news/nottingham-forest-finances-revealed It's not unusual for insurgent Premier League clubs to make big losses as they try to compete with the big six or seven.   Should Forest be relegated, they would face financial challenges.

The row between Ares Management and John Textor has escalated to the next level. The private capital group filed an application in London’s High Court to appoint administrators to Eagle Football Holdings Bidco Limited, which holds a majority stake in Eagle Football Group, the owner of Lyon, as well as clubs in Belgium and Brazil. Eagle is more than a test case for multi-club ownership in football. It is a coming together of sport and institutional capital. The outcome will be closely watched. Private capital firm Ares has appointed administrators to the owner of Olympique Lyonnais after it defaulted on its debts, in a move that puts the future of one of France’s leading football clubs in doubt. Eagle Football Holdings Bidco Limited holds a majority stake in Eagle Football Group, the owner of Lyon. Eagle Bidco, which also holds controlling stakes in Brazilian football club Botafago and Belgian team RWDM Brussels, is owned by US businessman and prolific football investor John T...

After the visit by Reform leader Nigel Farage to Ipswich Town led to an apology from the club, many fans at Sunderland have expressed concern about a similar invitation to the Stadium of Light issued by a Sunderland director:  https://www.itv.com/news/2026-03-27/nigel-farage-offered-sunderland-stadium-of-light-visit-by-club-director Reform has substantial support in Sunderland and there have been predictions that it may make a clean sweep of the forthcoming local elections. Nevertheless, fans of any club have a range of political views and it undermines the unity of supporters if a club identifies with one political party.

Wrexham's turnover jumped to £33.1 m last year, believed to be a record for a League One club not in receipt of parachute payments.  Full analysis by BBC Sport here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cj940y2vnlno

Hibernian's chief executive has admitted that the club's losses are not sustainable - £5.8 m in the past year and £18m over four seasons:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cly98887xkgo The chief executive said that the owning Gordon family could not be expected to continue to underwrite losses. The challenges faced by an historic club in Scotland's capital city reflect the financial challenges facing Scottish football as a whole. Another way of bringing extra cash to the club is to find an investment partner. Hibs did this with Bill Foley’s Black Knight group, generating £6m in return for a 25 per cent shareholding of the club in back in February 2024. However, the partnership with the Bournemouth owner ended “amicably” last year, with the Gordons buying the shares back. It is understood there was a difference in strategies. Since then, there has been speculation that other parties are keen to get involved at Easter Road - including Midtjylland owner Anders H...

The row about Nigel Farage's visit to Ipswich Town rumbles on, although the club has said they have nothing to add to their earlier statements. On Tuesday,  The Athletic  was the first media outlet to reveal that elements of Ipswich’s account of Reform’s visit, chiefly that Reform leader Nigel Farage had not been invited to the club, had been contradicted by sources at the party. But with the controversy continuing to escalate,  The Athletic  has now revealed more details which undermine Ipswich’s account and raise further questions of the club’s handling of the affair. These include: The invitation to Farage was made by an associate of chief executive officer MarkAshton. Farage was met by a club executive and then had lunch with Ashton and Luke Werhun, the club’s COO. The club gifted the politician six ‘Farage 10’ Ipswich shirts free of charge. Members of staff, some senior, have made formal complaints to Ipswich’s human ...

I have been sceptical about the long-term viability of fan owned clubs, recent events at Exeter City seem to confirm this.   Even prosperous fans in south-west London find it difficult to provide the funds needed to compete. AFC Wimbledon are at a crossroads, squeezed by what many League One and League Two owners believe is unsustainable spending that cannot continue. The fan owners face a dilemma: invite wealthy investors with deep pockets on board, or lose pace with the spiralling costs of running an EFL club. More than 4,500 of the 7,500-plus owners turned out to vote on Monday night, opting to dilute fan ownership to 50.01 per cent — similar to the model adopted by German clubs — and freeing up shares to sell to outside investors with funds to keep the club competitive. The club have spoken to about ten potential investors, including a consortium led by their former captain Robbie Earle. Many around the club fear this vote is merely a stepping stone to relinquishing ...

The tireless Swiss Ramble has provided a forensic analysis of Bournemouth’s accounts for 2024/25 from his Zurich base.  Here are some edited highlights, but his Substack page is very good value (free trial available). Bournemouth’s results off the pitch were excellent, as they swung from a £66m pre-tax loss to a £15m profit, a significant improvement of £81m in the bottom line, mainly due to profit from player sales increasing from just £251k to £91m. Revenue rose £21m (13%) from £161m to a club record £182m, while other operating income almost doubled from £9m to £17m.   However, this was more than offset by steep growth in operating expenses, which shot up £36m (16%) from £226m to £262m. in addition, net interest payable was up from £10.6m to £13.4m. The main driver of Bournemouth’s revenue growth was broadcasting, which rose £12m (9%) from £136m to £148m. There was also a significant increase in commercial, which was up £8m (45%) from £19m to £27m, while match day was...

Football clubs are best advised to avoid identification with any one political party as their fans are likely to hold a range of views. Ipswich Town appear to have been unaware of the way in which a private tour of Portman Road by Nigel Farage might then be exploited by Reform. The club may just have been naive, but it is something of a PR disaster which has upset many Tractors fans and led to some merriment in Norwich. Of course, sport cannot be kept out of politics, but partisanship, even if inadvertent, is best avoided.

Portsmouth owner Michael Eisner has warned of the risk of financial collapse in the Championship.  Coventry, Oxford, West Brom and Charlton have all chalked up big losses.  Eisner said: ‘No club can survive for long in this system and if that continues, catastrophe will happen.’ Negotiations to secure a bigger share of Premier League revenues have made little progress with top flight clubs questioning the extent of their obligation to less successful rivals.    In most sectors of the economy stronger businesses are not expected to subsidise weaker ones.   Supermarkets do not subsidise corner shops, but the latter have their own market niche. The regulator is looking at the distorting effect of parachute payments in the Championship, but an early intervention is not anticipated. The Swiss Ramble has provided a forensic analysis of Portsmouth’s accounts for 2024/25 from his Zurich fastness and some highlights follow.   The full in depth analysis is avai...

The founder of RedBird Capital Partners, Gerry Cadinale, bought AC Milan in 2022. A year ago, when the team was trailing in the Italian league and ultimately failed to qualify for European competitions, many of the 75,000 fans at San Siro regularly chanted “Cardinale devi vendere” — Cardinale must sell. Off the pitch, plans for a new stadium kept being stalled by Italy’s notorious bureaucracy. In the media, reporters speculated that Elliott Investment Management was the real power behind the throne at the club since the US hedge fund sold AC Milan to RedBird while also lending Cardinale’s firm money to finance the purchase. He quickly notes in a lunch interview with the Financial Times that he’s already made progress. Since he took charge, AC Milan has posted three consecutive years of record profits after decades of losses — though, as in politics, fiscal responsibility rarely wins applause from fans. He thinks, everybody expects him to come in with a ton of money to buy top players...

A bitter legal battle between the former owner of York City Jason McGill and the current owners could threaten the chances of the Minstermen returning to the EFL after a decade's absence. It is a complex dispute and one that has attracted the attention of the independent football regulator. McGill was credited with saving the club from oblivion with his loans, but he was a divisive figure and his relationship with the supporters' trust became strained. Julie-Anne Uggla is a 62-year-old British-Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist who lives in north London. The purchase of a football club — she also looked at Yeovil Town — was prompted by a passion for the game she shares with her son, the two of them forming 394 Sports Ltd. At York, they have become popular owners, investing more than £6 million in the past two years in pursuit of promotion. Should the Ugglas be unsuccessful in challenging McGill’s demand, it could be ruinous for the club. As detailed in the High Court clai...

Charlton Athletic have published their annual accounts for 2024/25.  A big loss of £16.8m is slightly offset by player sales:  https://www.charltonafc.com/news/charlton-submits-annual-accounts-report Revenue was up from £8.8m to £11.2m, but the wages to turnover level was 141 per cent, double the recommended level. Turnover was up £2.3m to £11.1m. No single cause - broadcast revenue, matchday and commercial all up about £0.5m and “other” up £0.7m. Some of that reflects reaching the play-off final against the very poor 2023/24 season. Commercial is big increase relative to a very low base. Commercial increase probably relates at least in part to bringing retail in house, which means all sales appear in the club’s turnover and not just commission. It would be partially offset by increased cost. The operating loss is shown as debt to the parent company, interest free, repayable on demand, now £25m. Salary costs were up £3.6m to £15.7m, reflecting increased turnover, but non-f...

An in depth and well argued look at Sunderland's latest accounts from a fan perspective which argues that football success and financial strength have finally met in the middle  with a financial model built to last:  https://rokerreport.sbnation.com/opinion/131563/sunderland-afcs-financial-rise-a-model-built-to-last

As Exeter City emerges from a financial crisis which has led to budget cuts, it is evident that there have been offers of external investment.  This interview with the interim chairman illustrates some of the limitations of the fan ownership model:  https://www.devonlive.com/sport/football/football-news/exeter-city-open-investment-offers-10872138

My eldest lives down the road from the Coventry City training ground at Ryton.  During the years of exile at Northampton and Birmingham it was a forlorn sight, blighted by years of under investment.  Now high fences keep out inquisitive eyes.  A cluster of Sky Blues fans can usually be seen by the gate hoping to see players or even Frank Lampard himself. The Swiss Ramble has cast an inquisitive eye over the 2024/25 accounts for the Sky Blues.  As usual, the full picture is available on his Substack platform, but here are some highlights. Despite the improvement in the league, Coventry found life more difficult off the pitch, as they swung from an £8.7m pre-tax profit to a £21.6m loss, a decline of £30.3m in the bottom line. The positive was a large increase in revenue, which rose £4.8m (17%) from £29.3m to a club record £34.1m, but this was not enough to compensate for a significant reduction in profit from player sales, which dropped £20.6m from £23.7m to just £3.1m...

Liverpool’s U.S. owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) has shelved plans to purchase a second football club.   FSG announced its intention to create a multi-club ownership (MCO) group in 2024 when it rehired Michael Edwards as its CEO of football. Extensive analysis was conducted on around 25 clubs with a strong focus on Spain, Portugal and France. FSG investigated possible deals for Bordeaux , plus Spanish outfits Malaga  and Getafe,  but opted not to pursue them. The New York Times  also revealed FSG looked into buying a minority stake of less than 30 per cent in Monaco in early 2025 alongside another ownership group but, again, decided not to take it any further. The reasons behind FSG's decision is necessarily speculative but they tend to be cautious and risk averse. To some extent the MCO bubble has burst or at least peaked.   It was also never quite clear what strategic objective they were pursuing.

The penalties imposed on Chelsea have reignited interest in the charges made against Manchester City  There has been no formal movement in the Premier League’s case against Manchester City for over a year. Following a four-year long investigation, City were originally charged with 115 breaches of the league’s financial regulations in February 2023 — depending on classification, it could even be understood as 130 breaches. City deny all charges, but broadly, the Premier League allege that the club breached profit and sustainability rules (PSR) by disguising payments from ownership as sponsorship, and providing undeclared salary or bonuses to players and managers. The in-person hearing began on September 16 2024, finishing almost three months later on December 6. The three-person independent panel then retired to reach their decision. Fifteen months have now passed without an update. “I really can’t comment, and there are very good reasons for that,” Premier League CEO Richard Master...

Chelsea have been handed a suspended one-year ban from signing first-team players and given a £10million ($13.7m; €11.6m) fine from the Premier League relating to breaches of financial rules during Roman Abramovich’s time as owner. The ban is suspended over two years, meaning that Chelsea will still be able to register senior players if they do not commit any further breaches. No sporting sanction, such as a points deduction, has been imposed. The club have also been banned from registering academy players for a period of nine months. The restriction, which comes into immediate effect, only applies to youth players that have previously been registered with another Premier League or English Football League club’s academy, and not any current players, international players or players who are registering on professional terms. It also does not apply to players who are applying for their first registration at Under-9 or otherwise, the Premier League said. The club will also pay a £750,000 ...

The Swiss Ramble was invited to give a presentation at the FT Football Business Summit on the increasingly popular model of multi-club ownership.   For some reason this contribution was not publicised by the Pink 'Un. It is the most thorough data-based treatment I have seen of the motivations for multi-club ownership and the advantages and drawbacks of the model.   Of itself it is a reason for subscribing to the Zurich-based football finance guru's Substack page. My only additional comment would be don't forget the wood for the trees.  I would argue that globalisation is alive and well in football and one thing that a globalisation model encourages is holding assets in different countries, albeit that the junior subsidiaries lose out. The Swiss Ramble states: ' One of the best known examples of multi-club ownership is City Football Group, largely owned by Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG). They first acquired Manchester City in 2008, but have significantly expanded ...

Eastleigh FC have increased season ticket prices by nearly 200 per cent.   Chairman Stewart Donald has made numerous attempts to sell the club or bring in new investors since losing his wife to cancer this year. The club blames increasing rates and utility bills along with the pending rise in the minimum wage.  Early bird prices range between £175 and £275 for adults and are still below the league average.  Eastleigh are currently 18th in the National League where they have been since 2014.   They have never really looked like promotion hopefuls but have evaded relegation. The town's population is listed as 24,000 and Southampton with its Championship team is not far away.

The owners of York City, promotion contenders from the National League, are being sued by the former owner for an estimated £4.2m. The dispute dates back to former owner James McGill selling his majority stake in 2022, as well as loans he made to the club. Club employees issued a statement backing the current owners Matt and Julie-Ann Uggla.

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire has warned Aston Villa that they cannot afford to slip into Euripe's third tier given that they have long been struggling to comply with Premier League financial fair play rules.   If you qualify for Europe you can only spend 70 per cent of your revenue on player costs comapred with 85 per cent in the Premier League. Maguire pointed out that for every £1 you earn in the Champions League you get 22p in the Europa League and 11p in the Conference League.    Moreover, every place in the Premier League is worth £2.5m. There are plans to expand the capacity of Villa Park to more than 50,000, but even if Villa double their match day revenue it will be over £100m behind that of United - they also attract more tourists who sp\end more on merch (yield at United is £80 per fan and at Villa £24). Maguire reckons that Villa need to be in the Champions League two years out of three if they are going to join the big six.

I t’s been a big few days for Atlético Madrid. Spain’s third-biggest club all but booked a place in the next round of the Champions League after dismantling an abject Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday night. A couple of days later, the biggest-ever takeover in Spanish football closed, with Apollo completing its purchase of a majority stake in Atlético at a valuation of somewhere north of €2bn (how far north depends on who you ask). Success in Uefa competitions is one of the reasons the club made an attractive prospect for the US investment group The deal was a win for Ares Management, which sold down the 34 per cent stake it had acquired for €182mn in 2021. The firm will continue to be involved as a smaller shareholder in the club, and most likely as a lender for the ambitious €800mn real estate project that first sparked Apollo’s interest (and is probably still the key driver of the decision to buy the club itself). But another big beneficiary was Quantum Pacific, the investment firm of Is...

  Liverpool’s return to the summit of the Premier League last season dovetailed with a return to profitability, and the club’s 2024-25 financials, publicly released last Thursday, unveiled the platform from which they launched last summer’s £400million transfer splurge. The champions booked a £15.2million profit, their best financial result since the 2018-19 season and a first profitable year in three. Revenue shot up £89m and 15 per cent to £702.7m, easily a club record, making Liverpool only the second English side, after Manchester City, to top £700m in annual turnover. At the top line, Liverpool’s revenue grew across all three income streams — matchday, broadcast and commercial — something only Arsenal could mirror last season among the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’. On a club-accounts basis, they were England’s highest-earning team last year, though Manchester City’s situation as part of the multi-club City Football Group (CFG) blurs matters. According to figures provided to and ...

Middlesbrough rely on owner Steve Gibson to fund a return to the Premier League, but too often they have been the nearly men.  This season they are in the second automatic promotion position, but only one point ahead of Millwall Outstanding away performances have been undermined by some nervous home performances against lowly clubs, exemplified by last night's defeat to Charlton. The Swiss Ramble has been conducting his usual forensic analysis of their 2024/25 accounts and his full analysis is available on his Substack page. Middlesbrough’s pre-tax loss slightly reduced from £12.4m to £11.4m, thanks to profit from player sales improving by £9.2m from £17.1m to £26.3m. Revenue was also a little higher, rising £0.3m (1%) from £32.2m to £32.5m, though there was a steep increase in operating expenses, which rose £7.9m (13%) from £62.5m to £70.4m, while net interest payable more than doubled from £0.5m to £1.1m. Since 2011 Gibson has put £176m into the club via loans, almost all of whic...

  A group led by American businessman David Storch has been named as the preferred bidder for Sheffield Wednesday, who will start the 2026-27 season in League One with a 15-point deduction. ,The winning bid is not high enough to ensure that all of the club’s unsecured creditors receive at least 25 per cent of what they are owed, hence the points deduction. The Storch group’s bid of just under £20million beat rival offers for the south Yorkshire-based club from English retail tycoon and ex-Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, a group led by former Charlton Athletic and Sunderland executive Charlie Methven and two undisclosed U.S. syndicates that made late bids.   Ashley was seen as the favourite at one stage but did not bid high enough. Storch, 73, retired as chief executive of aircraft maintenance firm AAR Corp in 2018, before spending another five years as the chairman of the multinational’s board of directors. He is now managing partner of Illinois-based investment firm ...

Real  Madrid file interim financials each year, and while they were again profitable in the opening half of this season, their surplus drooped notably. In the six months to the end of December 2024, Madrid made a pre-tax profit of €38.3m. A year on, the figure was just €6.1m, an 84 per cent fall. The heightened wage bill was a key driver in that, with most of the increase attributable to football staff and, within them, to first-team players.   Personnel costs there rose by €26.5m, as the impact of several new signings — Dean Huijsen, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alvaro Carreras and Franco Mastantuono — was felt. Captain Dani Carvajal’s new contract, signed in October 2024, also had a bearing; six months of any extra cost incurred by that new deal will have been recorded in the latest figures, as opposed to just three months in those from a year ago. Wages in the club’s basketball team jumped too, up €7.8m to €25.1m, but that still meant Madrid’s football-related wage bill for...

The award of the Wimbledon 'franchise' to MK Dons has long troubled football fans and fortunately the experiment has not been repeated.   Wimbledon fans formed their own successful  phoenix club which is in a higher division. But MK Dons have had trouble filling their 30,000 stadium.  For Saturday's game they offered free admission and managed to attract 23,465, an attendance record, Their highest average attendance was 13,000 in the Championship in 2015/16, but this season it has been around 7,500. The problem is that it still looks like an artificial club in an artificial city.   Many local residents have existing affiliations to London clubs.  The city is accessible by good train services. Milton Keynes has its attractions as a place to live, but how far do residents identify with it?   Building a fan base will take time.

The new independent football regulator could launch its first significant action after the troubled Lancashire club Morecambe appointed a senior executive who has been banned by Guernsey’s financial authorities for involvement in a fraudulent investment fund. Steve Dewsnip, 59, was appointed by Morecambe as their chief operating officer on February 19. The announcement came only days before the club were handed a transfer embargo by the National League for failing to comply with its financial rules. Dewsnip was director of a company which collapsed in 2016 leaving investors £37m out of pocket.  It was subsequently found guilty of conducting a fraudulent Ponzi scheme.   In August 2024 the Guernsey Financial Services Commission banned Dewsnip from involvement in a regulated entity. Morecambe had hoped that last August's takeover by Punjab Warriors would end a difficult time for the Shrimpers who are fighting relegation from the National League.   They had been pre...

The Swiss Ramble reviews the latest accounts of Liverpool FC.   The full analysis is available on his Substack page. Liverpool returned to profitability last season, as they swung from a pre-tax loss of £57m to a profit of £15m, a big improvement of £72m in the bottom line.   Revenue shot up £89m (14%) from £614m to a club record £703m, while profit on player sales more than doubled from £22m to £53m.  However, there was steep growth in operating expenses, which rose £61m (9%) from £684m to £745m, though net interest payable slightly decreased from £9.4m to £8.5m. One of the main drivers of the growth in Liverpool’s revenue was playing in the more lucrative Champions League, as opposed to the Europa League the previous season, which led to a steep increase in broadcasting, up £60m (29%) from £204m to £264m. There were also increases in match day, up £14m (14%) from £102m to £116m, and commercial, up £15m (5%) from £308m to £323m. Both these revenue streams estab...

Mke Ashley is one of several bidders who have submitted an offer to buy Sheffield Wednesday.   The exact number of bidders is not known, but American businessman David Storch is to have made an offer. Charlie Methevn, formerly involved at Sunderland and Charlton, is thought to be fronting a consortium (which seems to be his role in life). Administrators Begbies Traynor will announce their decision next Wednesday.   Around £18m is thought to be a suitable price, but any new owner would need to pump in cash to get them promoted from League One next season.  They will be helped by a large and strong fan base. Ashley is thought to be front runner as he should pass the EFL test for owners and directors and he can take over quickly.  He is worth over £3 billion according to the Sunday Times rich list. He wasn't popular at Newcastle, but may want to rebuild his football reputation.

There are still plenty of international buyers looking for clubs with potential.  Will the war in the Middle East dampen their enthusiasm?   Probably not for Americans who are currently the main movers and shakers.   They may feel even more 'bigly'. Bradford City look like one good prospect.   Owner Stefan Rupp, a German investor, bought the club with a business partner in 2016 but has been in sole charge since 2019. They were a League One side when he arrived, but were relegated in the year his partner quit and then returned to League One last year. They have spent most of this season in the play-off positions and are now fourth, six points clear of seventh-placed Huddersfield with a game in hand. Rupp has been listening to offers for years but has showing a bit more leg ever since last season’s promotion, hence the 31-slide “Welcome to Bradford City” presentation that arrived in the inbox.of Matt Slater, football business writer at The Athletic. ...

Good financial news from Stoke City as the club has turned a loss into a substantial profit while investing in infrastructure.  The club continues to enjoy the solid backing of the owners as it seeks a return to the top flight:  https://www.stokecityfc.com/news/2026/march/03/stoke-citys-accounts-released-for-24-25/

Last night’s victory at Fulham was a significant one for West Ham and gives them hope of staying up.  However, major challenges remain.  Things look no better for West Ham off the pitch, as they swung from a £57m pre-tax profit to a £104m loss in 2024/25, the worst result in the club’s history. The following report summarises the forensic analysis of the Zurich based football finance guru Swiss Ramble.    Much more in depth analysis is available on his Substack phase. This represented a massive £161m deterioration in the bottom line, largely driven by profit on player sales falling £76m from £96m to £20m, while revenue also dropped £42m (16%) from £270m to £228m.   West Ham’s £104m loss is the second largest so far reported for 2024/25, only surpassed by Tottenham’s £127m (according to UEFA’s Club Finance and Investment Landscape report). Despite the steep reduction in the top line, operating expenses still rose £29m (9%) from £307m to £366m, while interes...